Remember, Remember the 5th of November
by mandymld
Summary: Harry Potter, Guy Fawkes day and the hunt for the horcruxes with a smart Harry. Plus the fallout from ending the war early.


**Remember, remember the 5th of November.  
Chapter One**

Harry Potter was wincing at the glare coming his way from Hermione Granger while off to the side, his pseudo uncle was laughing his ass off and in the background, the fireworks display was simply astounding. As the bright gaudy colors and flashes and bangs exploded in the night sky, he felt a sense of relief, because the war was over. 

Over his way, not Voldemort's way or Dumbledore's way, but his way. He had begun the summer believing that he had to follow the great man's plan and not deviate, but as he had begun to feel overwhelmed with the responsibilities being tossed onto his shoulders, he had had the good sense to reach out to someone.

Remus Lupin had shown up and had listened and after ranting and raving about the headmaster and his need for secrecy, he had filled Harry in on all that he knew about horcruxes and what they could and couldn't do and the likelihood of their succeeding in restoring or keeping the dark lord alive.

Harry had protested, thinking that surely the headmaster would know more than his father's friend, until Remus had shown him the book that he had located in the Black family library. This had stunned the young boy who had been horrified to realize that he had learned nothing that would truly help defeat the dark lord in the past year, that the headmaster had placed all his eggs in one basket, a basket that had broken handles and a faulty bottom.

Remus had then told him to truly think, did he really believe that Sybil Trelawney had ever given a true prophecy. He had even dismantled his belief in the one that he had heard the woman announcing by pointing out that it could be taken lots of different ways.

By the time that Alistair Moody had come up with his idiotic plot to retrieve Harry using multiple Potters, the Boy Who Lived was completely disillusioned with the entire Order and it's former leadership so he had refused and had fled Privet Drive to Hermione's house a week early.

This had led to a battle royal with the so-called leaders of the Order of the Phoenix until Harry had pointed out that they had taken leave of their senses. Hermione and he had not attended the wedding of Fleur Delacour to Bill Weasley, both having decided that they would be better served preparing for the upcoming battle and helping to get the muggleborn witches and wizards out of danger.

When it was time to flee, Ron's mother had kept him tied to her apron strings and decided she was sending him to Romania to be out of harm's way along with Ginny when it was announced that Severus Snape was to be the new Hogwarts headmaster.

Now, Hermione and Harry were fighting against the dark lord and being public enemy number one. First up had been preparing to fight only to realize that they had weapons that the death eaters' wouldn't be able to counter from the muggle world. This had lead to another battle with the purebloods in the Order of the Phoenix who were appalled at the very idea, they had felt it was to fight without honor. Harry had stared at them in disbelief but thankfully, in spite of his own idiosyncrasies, Moody did have the practical understanding that using muggle weapons would cut down on the number of casualties on their side.

After the first battle, in which Harry had used dynamite to take down Riddle Manor and for their only losses to be a couple of brooms compared to destroying the building that was the dark lords' stronghold, it had changed several minds if not Molly Weasley's and a few other of the diehard Dumbledore supporters.

The secondary battles, taking down the homes of the dark lord's most prominent supporters and the camps after freeing the muggleborn prisoners, had a few more losses, nothing that wasn't acceptable. Injuries including Moody who had grimaced at the loss of his peg leg from not listening to the boy who had told him to stay far away from the explosives.

But it was now the 5th of November and Hermione who had long studied history had winced at the idea of blowing up the Ministry at midnight was warning Harry about Guy Fawkes and all that had gone wrong.

"Don't worry, Hermione. I have no intention of warning anyone." He had replied before going into the belly of the beast and if they found people with the dark mark leaving them behind stupified but questioning those with veritaserum any without the dark mark. Most were mere functionaries, who had stayed to do what they could to mitigate the damage, but a few including Delores Umbridge and Cornelius Fudge were if not true supporters, they were at the very least collaborators with the death eaters. The ones who were innocent were sent to a safe house where they were unable to contact anyone at the Ministry.

Upon hearing that Riddle himself was to be there that day to speak to the Wizengamot, Harry had planted the primary bomb created by the Weasley twins under the most ornate seat in the building. Oh, that he had also included the Weasley's biggest package of fireworks with the second bomb that would take off the roof of the building was kept silent, he had thought that he would just keep that secret to himself,

Not a well thought out plan, he had come to ruefully realize as he was seated on the roof of the Black manor house at Grimmauld Place watching the huge colorful fireworks display that was going off like a million other ones supposedly in celebration of Guy Fawkes day. He had seen the dark lord die in one of the headmaster's shiny silver gadgets that had once been tied to Harry's own lifeforce.

"Why did you put the fireworks display next to the bomb?" Hermione asked in a sweet tone, that fooled no one least of all Harry.

"I thought it would be pretty?" He weakly offered with a sick grin as he held up his bottle of butterbeer.

"Pretty? We are talking about the Weasley twins, Harry. Pretty and subtle which this was what this bomb was supposed to be, doesn't mix, the twins don't do subtle, do they, Harry James Potter?" She said her eyes flashing as she approached him where he was trying to escape to the edge of the roof. "In fact, the name Weasley and subtle aren't even in the same dictionary and you of all people know this."

"Yes, but-." Harry went silent, as even he found no excuse as the latest round of fireworks kept going on and on. The twins had not told him exactly how big this display was. It was going at four o'clock in the morning and there were still dragons, hippogriffs, brooms, and even a representation of Crookshanks and Hedwig exploding in the night sky. "I thought they would be pretty?"

Hermione wished that she could stay mad at Harry, but they had had a busy day, first with removing the connection between the dark lord and Harry at the bank and transferring it to the former headmaster's silver gadget that the less said about the better, then making plans to recover Hogwarts that afternoon and finally taking down one dark lord who had retreated to the Ministry after the wards had spontaneously strengthened and locked themselves down.

To Harry and the Order's delight, almost as much as it was to the student's delight, the death eaters in the castle had been rather rudely evicted via a catapult created by Severus Snape of all people. Severus had unfortunately rescued his godson, but in all that wasn't a bad thing, surely? He had been plotting and planning since learning of the headmaster's idiot plot to have Harry Potter save them, his disdain and disbelief in Harry's ability to do just that had had him checking the wards and finding out how ineffectual that they were as a result of the manipulative mischief created by the former headmaster.

Severus Snape had had to rely on Neville Longbottom to his chagrin to get the students to safety when the battle started and to his surprise, the Longbottom boy had performed his duties quite admirably. That Harry had given Neville a copy of the Hogwarts map, the dour potion's master, death eater and spy didn't need to know, nor that Remus Lupin had updated it just a tad.

So by eleven o'clock the evening of November 6th, the magical world was celebrating the ultimate defeat of Lord Voldemort aka the heir of Slytherin aka Tom Riddle whose vault at the goblins led bank locked down and a letter went out to his heirs informing him he was dead.

The goblins who were pissed off that a vault under their control and belonging to the former death eater named Bellatrix Lestrange had caught fire and damaged their bank had taken charge of her assets and were even then looking forward to punishing the insane witch who was even then a prisoner in their dungeons.

The rest of the death eaters, the Carrows, Yaxley, Nott, Parkinson, Boot, Macnair, the werewolf Grayback, and even the Malfoys were finding themselves facing justice. For most it meant a trip through the veil, but Severus Snape, the hero of the Hogwarts battle saved Narcissa Malfoy for the sake of her son, while her husband, well Lucius Malfoy was sentenced to Azkaban, and not the prison that Sirius Black had faced, but a magic repressing work farm from which there was no escape until you had repented your crimes and had given restitution to your victims.

Which meant, for Lucius Malfoy a lifetime sentence because there was no way that he could ever find it within himself to apologize to a muggle. The very idea of lowering himself to do such a thing had him deciding prison was a better choice.

* * *

 **Epilogue**

The Weasley children came home and to a different world than the one they had left, Ginny had been furious to find out that Harry had no intention of dating her ever, but she got over it in the end, mainly because she had found a better husband, at least in her mind in Ernie MacMillan, a wizard on the fast track to someday be Minister of Magic.

Ron had not been much happier, he had found out that Hermione intended to study at a muggle university after graduating from Hogwarts, he didn't get it, as far as he was concerned, she was too mental for him, why would anyone want to go off to do more schooling if they didn't have to. It wasn't worth the effort to keep dating her especially since Harry seemed to be busy with his own estates and some muggle inheritance that he had received from his mother to pay any attention to the fact that he, Ron had something he thought Harry wanted.

The duo who had stuck together through thick and thin were spending the week that they were to graduate from Hogwarts playing the part of maid of honor and best man for Remus Lupin and to their surprise, Dora Tonks. A month later, they had returned from Harry's inheritance that he had to take care off, an island in the Azones that he had inherited from Sirius Black. Hermione went off to Cambridge and Harry, well he was learning about estates and how to manage his funds from the goblins themselves.

That Christmas at the engagement party for Ginny Weasley and her fiancee Ernie MacMillian, Ron was showing off his girlfriend, Marietta Edgecombe who had taken one look at Hermione Granger and had demanded to leave. Ron had given his friends an abashed smile and then had gone home with his new girlfriend, only to overhear something that had him rolling his eyes in amusement as he denied what Marietta was telling her best friend Cho Chang.

"Harry isn't engaged to Hermione, they are just friends." He said. "Why when he could have any witch he wanted, would he choose a buck-toothed, know it all over that." Ron had never really gotten what it was that Harry had seen in Hermione during their time at Hogwarts but had still chased after her himself to ensure that for once he had gotten something Harry hadn't. Thankfully Harry had moved on after Hogwarts which meant that Ron was free to move on to prettier and less intelligent witches.

"Why then was she wearing a diamond ring on her finger?" Marietta asked.

"It's just Harry being Harry, showing off his wealth like he always did while at Hogwarts. I know Harry, Cho, he is my best friend, trust me, he isn't engaged to Hermione." He replied while asking Marietta to get him a bottle of beer as he was comfortable on the sofa.

When she went to do as asked, Cho Chang looked at the redhead with dislike and went to locate her friend. "Why do you let him boss you around like that?"

"He is connected to Minister Shacklebolt and once I get my promotion, I will dump him," Marietta replied. "Besides, I like that he knows so much about Potter and Granger, the Daily Prophet pays well."

"I still think that he is wrong about the engagement," Cho warned as she left the small apartment and went back to the engagement party for Ginny Weasley and Ernie MacMillian. Watching as the hostess for the party spent most of the evening with her eyes on Potter and Granger, Cho was chuckling when she realized that Ginny still had it bad for Potter who apparently had been forced to attend because of Hermione's wishes.

As the two witches moved closer to where Potter who was surrounded by his former teammates and dorm mates, both women were eavesdropping on his conversation. "Anyhow, I was getting antsy and finally just demanded that she take my hand."

"She looked up from her textbook and asked why?" He added. "I was so annoyed at that point because the restaurant had burnt our anniversary dinner, the waiter had spilled the wine all over me and when we went home, she was trying to pretend that she wasn't upset and I knew it and she knew it, so anyhow, I snapped I am trying to ask you to marry me, so hold my damn hand."

Hermione laughed and said, "I sat there for a few minutes, then threw myself into his arms, unknowingly triggering the fireworks display that he had arranged for the Weasley twins to set off for me."

"That was the..." There was some rueful laughter as Oliver was reminded of the display that had erupted over London the previous week and had had the muggle governments reminding people that Guy Fawkes Day wasn't for another two weeks. "So much for subtle, there, Potter."

"I involved the Weasley twins, we all know that the twins and subtle aren't in the same dictionary let alone on the same page," Harry said with a quiet chuckle as he held onto his fiancee who chuckled and pinched him at the reminder of what she had said the year before. "Anyhow, that is how I came to get Hermione to say yes to my proposal."

Ginny Weasley wasn't happy, but she could do nothing about it, but Cho, well she was just as willing to sell gossip to the rags as much as Marietta. Within twenty minutes of leaving the Weasley engagement party, she had spilled all she had learned about the engagement of Hermione Granger and Harry Potter and all about the ring she had seen on her fingers

The next day, Ginny opened the Daily Prophet expecting to find a huge article about her engagement party, equal to the huge amounts of money spent on it, only to find herself relegated to the back page as the society page ran article after article about the proposal of the Boy Who Lived to the Smartest Witch of her age. About their pasts and their career choices and then she saw the small article about how Harry James Potter was taking up his seats in the Wizengamot.

When she heard that the wedding had taken place, she finally scheduled her own, determined that this time she would be the belle of the ball, the lead story for a change, but to her everlasting anger, the very same week that Ernie and she got married, Hermione Granger announced that Harry and she were expecting their first child.

When she was about to announce her first child, the press reported on the announcement that Hermione Granger was taking the position of Chief Prosecutor and that her husband, the very wealthy Harry James Potter was endowing a scholarship to attend Hogwarts in her honor just like he had his mother.

Year after year of following in the shadows of the Potters, Ginny would get the spotlight just once, when it was announced that she was to take over as coach of the Chudley Cannons which had her brother Ron moaning and complaining that it wasn't fair and her mother begging her to find him a position with the team, any position, even broom repairer.

Meanwhile, the Potters were spending time with the Lupins, the Mr. William Weasleys and others for whom hard work and ambition meant that they had moved to achieve their dreams.

Harry and Hermione would have several children, all of whom would be homeschooled not by their mother but by their father until it was time to attend Hogwarts. Who would go on to achieve not only the highest scores on exams and graduate tops of their classes but would also achieve the highest rates of detentions to the determent of headmaster Neville Longbottom's hair color.

As the last of the Potter children graduated, Headmaster Longbottom was being laughed at by former headmistress McGonagall and former Headmaster Snape as both had quickly retired from the education system the very second that the book of names showed Potter children existing.

When Harry and Hermione were proudly embracing their youngest child, Headmaster Longbottom was reluctantly telling them that a portrait had recently been found of the former headmaster Albus Dumbledore and that it was demanding to speak to them.

Their feral grin had the former headmasters determined to be there as the Potters sent their daughter to chase after her brothers as they followed Neville to the gargoyle still guarding the tower. When he said gillyweed for the password, Harry felt the heat of the glare coming off Snape but merely ignored the man.

Soon standing in the headmaster's office, he heard the smooth voice of Dumbledore saying. "Harry, my boy..."

"Boy?" Harry looked at the small portrait with disdain and announced "At forty- six, I am hardly a boy. What do you want, Dumbledore?"

"I was hoping to speak to you alone." The picture announced then looking at those gathered asked: "Where is Mrs. Potter, surely Ginerva came with you on such an important day?"

"Why would you think that I would marry Ginny?" Harry asked with a wink towards Hermione as they had long figured out the potions that they had been dosed with and that the man in the portrait had had a part in it.

"Surely..." Albus had the sense to go quiet, as he realized he was missing part of the story. "I was hoping to hear the tale of your adventure and how you succeeded in defeating Lord Voldemort and stayed alive."

"Well, first of all, I ditched your messed up plan and realized that relying on three seventeen-year-olds to do the job was fool-hardy at best and dangerously idiotic at worst," Harry said leaning against the desk, twirling his wand between his fingers. "Then I figured out the power he knows not, care to guess what it was?"

"Love, Harry. I always knew the answer." Dumbledore replied.

Scoffing, Harry said "So what was I go up to him and hug him to death, I prefer my way a hell of a lot better. It was fast, efficient and did a much more thorough job of dealing with the death eaters, cost-effective as well considering we didn't have to house as many prisoners afterward."

"What about the...er.."

"Horcruxes?" Harry said, his eyes narrowing when he saw the portrait blanch at his announcing what he had kept silent for so long. "We found them, including the one inside my forehead, turns out that you wasted an entire year chasing after a red herring because those things were worthless once he regained his body. I left the Goblins to chase them down."

"You! YOU did what?" The headmaster was looking shellshocked at this point.

"Yes, they did the job with a ruthless efficiency that can't be matched, then we planted some dynamite at Riddle Manor and watched as the rats all scurried to escape, literally in the case of Wormtail who ran straight into the arms of Remus Lupin. We watched as he went through the veil later that week." Harry offered with a cold grin.

When the old man began sputtering, Harry interrupted his attempt to speak and continued "We blew up Malfoy Manor, the Lestrange Grange, Flint's family estate, and several other hiding spots until they were all forced into the public domain. In coordination with your spy here at Hogwarts, we strengthened the wards that you weakened so badly in your attempts to draw out Riddle and Professor Snape dealt with the dregs of society that had infested the school while we blew up the Ministry."

"You blew up the Ministry? OH, Harry my boy, I am so disappointed in you, you have turned to the dark side. The lives that were lost that could have been saved..."

The tears falling onto the parchment did nothing to soften the blow that followed.

"We decided that the best way to prevent another dark lord from growing from inside our world was to tear it down and tear it down we did. We now have true equality for all magical creatures, we have voting rights for all, the days of secrets and lies is gone. Isn't this what we were fighting for?"

"You have doomed us." Dumbledore was saying as he struggled to figure out where he had gone so wrong with Harry. "You have doomed our way of life."

"Your way of life was repressive to those who weren't just like you. Your way of life was bigoted against those whose lineage wasn't as old as yours, it allowed innocent men to be tossed into prison without trial, it sends an eighteen-month child to live with people that would abuse him. Your way of life killed so many and was the petri dish that kept creating dark lords that led to the death of millions. No more, I said that if I was going to fight it was going to a fight to rebuild society in the reflection of its people, not in the image of any one man, especially a man as flawed as yourself."

"Harry, Harry, Harry, you have gone dark..." Minerva McGonagall had begun to realize that she had long followed a delusional man years before, but as the former headmaster went on and on about how they had abandoned the greater good and how the world would fall apart, she couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"One thing you need to realize Dumbledore is that history is written by the victors and of course, by those who remain alive. A dead martyr is just that, dead. You tried things your way, it only leads to chaos, our way, well thirty years and not a single dark lord has appeared. Our way and there has been prosperity." Harry stated.

"By the way, I didn't marry Ginny Weasley because I didn't love Ginny Weasley, I know about the potions that you secretly were drugging Hermione and myself with. I know everything. You, well you wouldn't know love and what true devotion was if it cursed you in the ass."

Harry saw the way that Snape was eyeing him and shook his head that he would explain later before going to the wall and using his magical signature opened a small enclosure in which they stored the Elder Wand just in case. Removing it, he looked at the headmaster and announced "It was decided by the powers that be and for the greater good that all portraits of yourself were to be destroyed.

"Harry, a small fire, please?" Hermione asked.

His grin answered that question as he used the elder wand to blow up the portrait. They could hear Dumbledore protesting, calling out that he had been taken over by Voldemort himself and that he was a threat to the magical world even as the boom reverberated around the tower.

Neville was handed back the wand and replaced it in the niche before asking Hermione in a casual tone "Does he ever listen to you?"

"On most things, we negotiate, but when it comes to fires..." She shrugged and then walked over to make sure that nothing existed of the portrait. "So, that should be the last one."

"Thankfully yes," Neville replied as they turned towards Minerva who was being consoled by Severus over her blindness to the manipulative nature of the headmaster and Harry who was being lectured by the portrait of his ancestor for not coming to visit more often.

The five of them exited the tower, just in time to hear the sound of a phoenix's song echoing through the stone castle, as the return of Fawkes showed that the magical world was finally on the right path to peace.

 ****

 **The end.**


End file.
